de. We cannot, he said, expect human
justice to be infallible; but we must not draw a hard and fast line
between the world inside the prison and the world outside, as if the
courts of justice had the divine power of judging between good and
evil. In Canada, he said, we have no system of reforming the prisoner;
even the chaplain or the teacher never enters the prison walls.
"Children of eight and ten years of age are placed in our gaols,
surrounded by hundreds of the worst criminals in the province." He
went on to describe some of the evils of herding together hardened
criminals, children, and persons charged with trifling offences. He
advocated government inspection of prisons, a uniform system of
discipline, strict classification and separation, secular and
religious instruction, and the teaching of trades. The prisoner should
be punished, but not made to feel that he was being degraded by
society for the sake of revenge. Hope should be held out to those who
showed repentance. The use of the lash for trifling offences against
discipline was condemned. On the whole, his views were such as are
now generally accepted, and he may be regarded as one of the pioneers
of prison reform in Canada.

The habit of personal attack was further illustrated in the charge,
frequently made by Mr. Brown's enemies, that he had been a defaulter
in Scotland. The _North American_ had printed this accusation during
its fierce altercation with the _Globe_, but the editor, Mr.
Macdougall, had afterwards apologized, and explained that it had crept
into the paper during his absence and without his knowledge. In the
session of 1858, a Mr. Powell, member for Carleton, renewed the attack
in the House, and Mr. Brown made a reply of such compelling human
interest that not a word can be added or taken away. He said: "This is
not the first time that the insinuation has been made that I was a
defaulter in my native city. It has been echoed before now from the
organs of the ministry, and at many an election contest have I been
compelled to sit patiently and hear the tale recounted in the ears of
assembled hundreds. For fifteen years I have been compelled to bear in
silence these imputations. I would that I could yet refrain from the
painful theme, but the pointed and public manner in which the charge
has now been made, and the fear that the public cause with which I am
identified might suffer by my silence, alike tell me that the moment
has come when I ou